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As the domestic automobile and light-truck markets gradually trend toward various electric vehicle (EV) designs, forgers are faced with both challenge and opportunity.
After a longer-than-normal, COVID-19-related hiatus, FIA will resume its Forge Fair cycle. Forge Fair 2021 will be held at Detroit’s TCF Center starting October 26 and ending on October 28. This article will give you all the pertinent information to start planning your Forge Fair experience.
The U.K.’s Sheffield Forgemasters is being acquired by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to support a substantial recapitalization of the company’s defense-critical plant and equipment over the next 10 years. The investment will secure Sheffield Forgemasters’ role as a critical supplier to the next generation of U.K. defense programs while continuing its independent commercial activities, serving markets such as civil nuclear, oil and gas, power generation, renewables and steel processing.
ArcelorMittal will invest approximately $1.2 billion in decarbonization technologies at its Asturias plant in Gijón, Spain. The project will reduce CO2 emissions at the company’s Spanish operations by up to 4.8 million metric tons, which represents approximately 50% of emissions, within the next five years. At the heart of the plan is a 2.3 million-metric-ton green-hydrogen direct reduced iron (DRI) unit, complemented by a 1.1 million-metric-ton hybrid electric-arc furnace (EAF). This starts the transition of the Gijón plant away from the blast-furnace and basic-oxygen-furnace steelmaking production route to the DRI-EAF production route, which carries a significantly lower carbon footprint. The new DRI, which ArcelorMittal says will be the first of its kind in Spain, and EAF will be in production before the end of 2025.
United States Steel Corp. executed a non-exclusive memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Equinor US Holdings Inc., an affiliate of Norway-based Equinor ASA. Under the MOU, the companies will study the potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen development in the tristate region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Hydrogen-based steel processes and CCS are among the more promising and sustainable technologies currently being developed.
Bull Moose Tube Co. (BMT), a Caparo Bull Moose subsidiary, announced plans to build a 350,000-ton-per-year pipe and tube mill on Steel Dynamics’ new Sinton, Texas, flat-rolled campus. The facility will produce sprinkler pipe and hollow structural sections (HSS) using steel from SDI’s plant. According to BMT, the mill will make product ranging in size from 4 to 14 inches square, 5 to 18 inches round, up to 80 feet long and thicknesses ranging from .187 to .750 inch. It will also expand BMT’s geographic footprint and allow the company to better serve customers in the Southwest, West Coast and Mexico markets. Company officials said they anticipate an early 2023 mill start-up.
Automation within forges and heat-treating facilities often consists of individually controlled processes for individual pieces of equipment, such as furnace heating or press operation cycles. Individual processes can be controlled at a Level I protocol. Full cell automation consolidates these automated steps and implements a central Level II control system, which is designed using a combination of Windows services and model-view-controller (MVC) architecture.
SECO/WARWICK will deliver two vacuum furnaces to Flansch-Tech, a specialist in aluminum and steel forging, in Budapest. According to SECO/WARWICK, one of the vacuum furnaces will be the largest in Hungary. The Vector with horizontal charge loading is equipped with a 15-bar nitrogen cooling gas-pressure system and a production work area of 900 mm wide x 900 mm high x 1,200 mm long). It will be used for the heat treatment of tool steels – mostly dedicated to hardening and tempering – and will allow Flansch-Tech to process larger parts.
Commercial Metals Company (CMC) announced that the Maricopa County Air Quality Department granted it an operating air permit, enabling the company to begin construction of its third technologically advanced micro-mill and the second at its Mesa, Ariz., site. According to CMC, the facility will be the first micro-mill in the world to produce merchant bar and rebar, and it will employ the latest in environmentally friendly steelmaking technology. The plant’s capability to directly connect to an on-site renewable-energy source, which CMC says is a first in North America, will further enhance the low emissions and efficient energy consumption of the micro-mill process.
Tenaris plans to restart activity at its two plants in Pennsylvania: the Koppel melt shop and Ambridge seamless pipe mill. The plant in Koppel – the company’s first domestic steel shop – is finalizing an investment announced in 2020 to upgrade its steel bar size capabilities while also incorporating additional improvements in safety and automation. Tenaris has since increased its investment to include the revamping of existing cranes used to feed the furnace with scrap metal and a new production management system to improve process control at the steel shop. The more than $15 million investment is projected to be completed in May with production to start up in June.
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